Basically, if you're a silver subscriber and you download the Mass Effect 3 demo on February 14th, you get free Xbox Live Gold membership until the game comes out on March 3rd. Not a bad deal if you're currently a silver subscriber!

If you're a Silver subscriber on Xbox Live, downloading the Mass Effect 3 demo will allow you to cease being that one weirdo in your group who can't ever play with his friends online because he's a cheapskate.

Yeah, that's the only reason why people have a Silver subscription. If they ever fix it so you don't have to wear that crap on your head, I might consider it. How about silent multiplayer? I don't want to hear you and the only thing I have to say are a string of four-letter words, so why don't we just shut up and play?

If you're a Silver subscriber on Xbox Live, downloading the Mass Effect 3 demo will allow you to cease being that one weirdo in your group who can't ever play with his friends online because he's a cheapskate.

Yeah, that's the only reason why people have a Silver subscription. If they ever fix it so you don't have to wear that crap on your head, I might consider it. How about silent multiplayer? I don't want to hear you and the only thing I have to say are a string of four-letter words, so why don't we just shut up and play?

Do other people know you can't hear them? If not, they could be yelling for you to run left without knowing you can't hear them.

I believe they do, because the speaker icon either doesn't illustrate sound coming out, or has a line through it, or something like that. They just have to look in the game's lobby our their pull-up guide menue or something, I believe.

Do other people know you can't hear them? If not, they could be yelling for you to run left without knowing you can't hear them.

I believe they do, because the speaker icon either doesn't illustrate sound coming out, or has a line through it, or something like that. They just have to look in the game's lobby or their pull-up guide menu or something, I believe.

Thanks. I might try it one of these days if people don't expect that everyone will be talking and listening.

A perfect example of why I believe I have at least 2 more years left in the 360 before I'm ready for another console. And that would be true if no more games came out. I still have Mass Effect 2 in shrinkwrap and sitting on the backlog. I also have not touched Bioshock 2, Fable 2, GTA IV, Fallout New Vegas... just to name a couple. As a matter of fact... here is my backlog as it stands: http://www.howlongto...ye&show=backlog

Do other people know you can't hear them? If not, they could be yelling for you to run left without knowing you can't hear them.

I believe they do, because the speaker icon either doesn't illustrate sound coming out, or has a line through it, or something like that. They just have to look in the game's lobby or their pull-up guide menu or something, I believe.

Thanks. I might try it one of these days if people don't expect that everyone will be talking and listening.

From my experience with the games I play online most people don't use mics. I used to use a mic but most people rarely say anything so I stopped using it.

from my experience, the majority use it. but you might not it know because they're in party chat. party chat isolates the chat so that only people in the party can hear the chat. it's a great way to talk to only your friends and hear only your friends. some people set up 1-person parties just so that they don't have to listen to the chatter in public game chat. More convenient than muting people.

sometimes I switch to game chat when I realize people are talking (seeing their speaker icon moving) because maybe they want to communicate something to me. but most of the time, I just leave it in party chat. Let the unknown public do whatever they want while I enjoy the company of friends.

in terms of public game chat, most people stay quiet until someone steps forward and breaks the ice. talking to random people can be daunting. that's why you add friends. the easiest ice breakers are to help people out, ask questions, etc.

in terms of public game chat, most people stay quiet until someone steps forward and breaks the ice. talking to random people can be daunting. that's why you add friends. the easiest ice breakers are to help people out, ask questions, etc.

That's actually the single biggest reason why I haven't traditinally done a lot of public multiplayer. I'm not a shy guy by any stretch of the imagination. However I feel mucho awkward speaking to a bunch of strangers, a lot of whom may be 13 years old, over a headset. This is good to know that most people have their sets muted anyway unless playing with friends.

My own personal opinion: unless you do absolutely no shopping on-line, having your credit card linked to Live is no different than purchasing something at an on-line vendor, like Amazon or, well, anywhere.

I think where people get in trouble is that a lot of places, like on-line message boards and communities, etc., use your e-mail address as a login id. Then if someone cracks that site and you use the same password in both, well, they now have access to your Live account as well. But that's not an issue with Microsoft security, it's a social engineering problem....people should utilize different passwords.

But again, my own personal opinion. Definitely not having any CC's tied to Live is the absolute safest way to go, and I wouldn't argue with that.

My own personal opinion: unless you do absolutely no shopping on-line, having your credit card linked to Live is no different than purchasing something at an on-line vendor, like Amazon or, well, anywhere.

I think where people get in trouble is that a lot of places, like on-line message boards and communities, etc., use your e-mail address as a login id. Then if someone cracks that site and you use the same password in both, well, they now have access to your Live account as well. But that's not an issue with Microsoft security, it's a social engineering problem....people should utilize different passwords.

But again, my own personal opinion. Definitely not having any CC's tied to Live is the absolute safest way to go, and I wouldn't argue with that.

If you want to use voice chat but don'w want to wear a headset you can use the Kinect (if you have one).

yes, that's an option.

but I'd reserve Kinect mics to voice commands or to video chat or avatar kinect chat. because most gamers turn up the volume of their TV/AVR to be immersed in their game and that feeds back into the Kinect mics. sometimes you can even hear yourself because it came out their TV into the Kinect mics. If you have a set of headphones, then the Kinect mics are totally fine and that's how some of my friends do it when they don't want to wear a headset but their mic is broken and they're waiting on a new mic to come in the mail.

the Kinect does have noise cancellation but abrupt sounds are very difficult to cancel. If you've ever use Bose QC3 or QC15 headphones, you know they're excellent at canceling out ambient noise but aren't that good at handling abrupt noises like someone suddenly saying something. the sound is just too fast to be processed.

but other times, because of the noise cancellation, the Kinect will chop words up.

I have it disabled because I don't really want to know how many 13 year olds are pwning me over and over again the few times I do bother getting online.

you'd be surprised how many of them are really nice, polite, and helpful. I remember this 7 year old joining a horde session in Gears of War 3. The rest of us were 22-40. And he was the nicest kid. Went completely out of his way to bail people out. Didn't curse. Totally nice. We chuckled when he had problems reading big numbers (think millions).

A perfect example of why I believe I have at least 2 more years left in the 360 before I'm ready for another console. And that would be true if no more games came out. I still have Mass Effect 2 in shrinkwrap and sitting on the backlog. I also have not touched Bioshock 2, Fable 2, GTA IV, Fallout New Vegas... just to name a couple. As a matter of fact... here is my backlog as it stands: http://www.howlongto...ye&show=backlog

I might just have to give up.

i'm at least 6 months behind on releases so i've got plenty to play going forward. i've taken to letting anything i'm interested in hit the under-$20 price point on gamefly, gaming just isn't that important to me anymore so i'm willing to wait.